Peter Navarro, Senior Counsellor for Trade and Manufacturing under former US President Donald Trump, has once again targeted India on social media after being repeatedly fact-checked for spreading misinformation about its oil trade with Russia.
In his latest outburst on X, Navarro accused Indians of manipulating the results of a poll he had posted. “India has the largest population in the world & all it can do is manage a few hundred thousand X propagandists to jerk around a poll? Too funny. America: look at how foreign interests use our social media to advance their agenda,” he wrote.
The remarks followed his earlier poll questioning X’s content moderation policies, where 75% of over 56,000 respondents supported criticism of his claims, while only 17% backed him. Navarro alleged that “Indian special interests” were interfering in domestic US discourse with “lies” about India’s Russian oil imports.
Earlier, Navarro dismissed X’s community notes correcting his false claims, calling them “crap” and accusing Elon Musk of promoting “propaganda.” He repeated allegations that India was profiteering from discounted Russian oil and imposing high tariffs that, in his words, “cost Americans jobs.”
Navarro has frequently taken hostile digs at India in recent months, branding it a “laundromat for the Kremlin” and even making caste-based remarks, accusing “Brahmins” of benefitting from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.